The White Newsroom
The news that is presented to the millions of people in a nation has been carefully selected for it's audience. Reporters know what to say and how to say it, the production team knows what stories to tell and at what time. The news is curated to satisfy the desires of the human mind. These desires relate to witnessing celebrity drama, political tensions, man made tragedies, and the like. And the people behind these stories are more than likely to be White. According to a study conducted by the Pew Center Research Analysis of 2012-2016, 23% of newsrooms employees were people of color, 25.9% of local news reporters were persons of color, and 14.5% of radio employees were people of color.
Underrepresentation of ethnical groups can lead to tensions and mistreatments. That is why the demographics of news reports and journalists matter. If journalists mainly consist of one ethnical group, it only allows for one culture or viewpoint to be distributed to the masses. This can be seen even in different news reporting organizations. CNN is often viewed as a more democratic new station, whereas Fox News is viewed as more Conservative. If CNN was the only channel that was allowed then the people would be subject to this single train of information and viewpoint. It is vital to have different options and different viewpoints in order to reach audiences of all ethnicity groups.
Diversity in the news reporting field is vital to ensure all groups are being represented equally, and they all have a voice in the distribution of stories, political issues, natural disasters, potential wars, and so on. With the ongoing challenge of racial inequalities, social injustices, climate change, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters it is important that voices from every part of the story are able to speak their truth.
Link to Article: https://www.niemanlab.org/2020/11/the-moral-case-for-diversity-in-newsrooms-also-makes-good-business-sense/
Hi Keyondra, really great post. I figured that there was some underrepresentation of POC in journalism, but I didn't understand how severe until now. The consequences of ignoring the voices of those who have been historically disenfranchised is blindly apparent. The most immediate example that came to my mind was how many news companies spun Black Lives Matter protests into a violent narrative to downplay the horrible discrepancy in the worlds that white and black people live in. Even more "liberal" news sources hyper-focused on the few examples of violence instead of the true message of the movement. I will definitely begin to consider this more when reading/watching the news.
ReplyDeleteI agree that diversity in news reporting is essential in guaranteeing that all groups are represented fairly. The information provided by news and media outlets should accurately represent the varied population that is serves. To do so, it is important that journalists of many ethnicities, faiths, genders, and political affiliation are represented. By media institution creating a newsroom that reflects the diverse news that they are producing, it advances their authenticity and eliminates biased content. Audiences may question the legitimacy of media organization if their newsroom culture does not mirror the varied news material they produce, which is what most platforms and outlets try to avoid. Great Post!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post. Diversification of journalists would help give audiences a better understanding the impact that an issue can have on the population. It is definitely important that consumers of news do their part to keep in mind that the media is trained to give information and could sway them to believing anything. Some media channels are more interested in the shock factor of the news instead of the content which is can add to the problems that come up from the lack of diversity.
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